Guaranteed reading with intelligence

Guaranteed reading with intelligence

Monday, 12 May 2014

Pest On The Run by Gerry Burke

Reviewed by Raymond Mathiesen4.5 out of 5 stars

Big trouble and light hearted investigations…

A beautiful stage
show star, come whore house madam, is suddenly foully murdered, despite her
apparent gangster protection. A
disgruntled Japanese business tycoon hires a hit man to assassinate Australia’s
Prime Minister. An unbeatable game show
contestant takes a recreational bungee-jump, only to have her rope break in
what her friend thinks is dubious circumstances. Enter the low-life world of Paddy Pest,
sometimes Private Investigator and sometimes secret agent for Australia’s spy
bureau ASIO. Pest is based in Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia, though is very frequently an international traveler. He is a master of dubious disguises, and
often manages to solve the case despite his shortcomings. Here is a world where virtually everybody has
a rancorous underbelly, and where murder is a common life event, but where good
will eventually win out (even if by fluke).
These humorous short stories wil beguile you, entertain you and make
you chuckle. Gerry Burke's Pest On The Run: More Humorous Short Stories From The Paddy Pest
Chronicles (iUniverse, c2012) is ideal for the lover of crime and murder mystery
tales, but will also suit busy people looking for a witty amusement to fill a
free hour or two.

Paddy is a
frequent visitor of both upper class and lower class hotel bars, and these
tales have the ethos of a pub yarn: unlikely events, boisterous pride, and male
machoism lubricated to dubious heights.
The style is very chatty, with Pest narrating his stories as if he is
talking to an interested acquaintance.
There are asides to the reader.
When pertinent, Paddy occasionally reminisces about his past, including
his childhood. With a flair for drama he
sometimes skips over the more mundane details to get to the action and juicy
bits. These stories certainly deal with
the darker side of life, and a few times death is narrated, but the great
majority of these plots take place after the brutality is over. This book is about solving crime, not
depicting crime and is overwhelmingly light hearted. Paddy is certainly a ladies man and the
ticklish subject of sex is often alluded to, though not specifically depicted. In tune with the ‘pub ethos’, Paddy’s
descriptions of women can be quite humorously crude, without actually being
offensive, except perhaps to the conservative. There are several laugh out loud moments and
every story will leave the reader smiling.
Most stories have moments of high drama, though here the unlikeliness of
the action is taken tongue in cheek.
Occasionally Burke includes good phrasing that lifts the text. We read for example the atmospheric and
slightly philosophic sentence: “Often, when you visit a country with a
different culture, it is difficult to break through the veneer of reserve that
camouflages a human spirit that is primed to explode” (Burke, p. 25). More of this care in writing would make the
book even better. There is occasional
foul language, but this is completely in tune with the macho low-life spirit of
the book and will not offend most readers. This is a book by an Australian author and
there is quite a sprinkling of colloquialisms and cultural references which may
be unfamiliar to international readers.
Some are explained in the text, which erases any difficulty, but some
are not. These are, however, in no way
essential to the text and will at the most cause a moment of wondering before
the reader passes on.

In his collective stories
Burke presents us with an interesting portrait of “Patrick Pesticide aka Paddy
Pest” (Burke, p. v). Paddy is of Irish
heritage, though primarily Australian in outlook. Burke thus combines both Irish luck and
silliness, with the Australian macho male.
He is a gambler and bets on race horses, and has quite an eye for the
women. Paddy is of dubious
background. He says of himself “I would
not say I was straight or bent – somewhere in the middle” (Burke, p. 4). On the down side Paddy can be quite sexist,
seeing women in many ways as bodies first.
Full of pride Pest sees himself as a “master of disguise” (Burke, p.
37), though others are not nearly as convinced.
While Paddy is in training in New Guinea one character comments on his
being “dressed in a ridiculous head-hunter’s outfit” (Burke, p. 188). By creating this mix of good and bad Burke
has created an endearing, eccentric character that we can like because he gives
us a slightly spicy escape from our ‘ordinary’ lives. Paddy reminds us of the rough, tough boy at
high school who everybody admired, but who never really did anything seriously
wrong. He is a ‘lad’ and the reader is
charmed. Paddy of course comes in a
great tradition of incompetent Private Investigators / Spies. We think of Austin Powers, Inspector Jacques
Clouseau, Agent Maxwell Smart and even Inspector Gadget. Burke, however, has given us his own
particular spin on the pattern, and we do not feel that we are reading a
complete copy.

A few other
characters pop up more than once. There
is Stormy Weathers, the totally competent ASIO agent, who has a cover job as
barmaid at Sam’s Fly by Night Club.
There is Justin O’Keefe, the slacker police Inspector with an attitude. Mostly these secondary characters are at a
minimum. Burke does, though, give them
personality traits that flesh them out a bit.
Stormy, for example, is a jealous lover.
Occasionally Burke gives us a potted history of a character, giving us a
summary of their eccentricities and adventures.
Murder victim Frankie Hogan, for example, is a memorable woman with true
spirit. Burke describes her in three
pages giving the story depth and poignancy.
Burke is quite skilled at this kind of detail and his writing would
benefit by including more of it.

As we have noted
Pest himself can be quite sexist. At one
point for example he outrageously poses the equation that large breasts equals
many friends (Burke, p. 200). Much of
the humor, however, arises from the fact that many women are in actuality much
more competent than him. As Pest himself
says: “There had been two attempts on my life and, once more, I had been saved
by a woman” (Burke, p. 77). These stories
are indeed filled with dynamic, no-nonsense women you would think twice about
crossing. There is a dangerous female
assassin, successful business women, and several able female secret agents. Frankie Hogan takes no sexual nonsense from
men, has “personality” (Burke, p. 3), and is a success in all her career
ventures. Not to err too much on one
side Burke has included one nasty, negatively-portrayed, female villain (Burke,
p. 118). On the whole this book will
pass Feminist standards, though some may not take the humor.

Shifting to male
roles and Gender Studies it should be noted that these stories are in some ways
very much in the ethos of the 1950’s though they are set in contemporary
times. This is the world of the tough
guy, the gangster, the merry bachelor.
Men should not really have soft feelings. Hyman Finkelstein, a low-life criminal,
doesn’t even like people looking at him (Burke, p. 151) let alone be able to
have a mature relationship. Fear is a
sign that a guy must be a “nancy boy” (Burke, p. 230). Paddy, on the other hand, is able to hug an
old, male friend (Burke, p. 17). Women
are very much a sexual adjunct to the male ego.
Paddy does have a kind of steady relationship with Stormy, but even that
is very much a breakable, uncommitted relationship. This whole ‘retro’ male image is, however,
held up to debunking humor. This male
world is on shaky ground. The great male
image repeatedly is out shone by women and needs females to save it.

As with the issue
of women and Feminism, Paddy Pest, and those he meets, can be quite homophobic. Paddy, for example, refers to gays by a
disparaging name (Burke, p. 244), as does Hyman Finkelstein (Burke, p,
151). Finkelstein is particularly
negative about gays. The actual representations of LGBTIQ people, however, on
the whole are not that negative about that aspect of their lives. LGBTIQ people are primarily represented by
two stories. First there is The
Candidate which spotlights Lindsay Dove and his life-partner Jay
Sniggle. Lindsay is a U.S. presidential
candidate and Jay is an IT consultant.
Then there is Who Was That Masked Man? highlighting the
‘butch-fem’ caterer Cate Edwards. Cate
is a villain, but the story is not negative about her being a lesbian. This second story indeed has Ellen DeGeneres
making fun of Paddy’s cloddish ignorance of the LGBTIQ community. Ellen is mentioned (as an LGBTIQ person) in
another story (Burke, p. 84), as is k.d. Lang (Burke, p. 154).
Gay Mardi Grass are mentioned twice.
A number of times women are suspected to be lesbian (not in a negative
way) and a ‘drag-queen’ secret agent is depicted canoodling with an unwitting
male politican (Burke, p. 138-139). On
another occasion Paddy comes upon a not so pretty ‘drag-queen’ (Burke, p. 21),
but this is the only negative description, and of course not all transvestites
are necessarily beautiful. Once again
the issue should not offend interested parties as long as the humor is taken
into account.

The often ignored
Indigenous and Racial Minorities also feature.
Lindsay Dove is “black” (Burke, p. 79) as well as being gay. In A Long Time Gone Australia’s Jewish
minority is highlighted in the character of Hyman Finkelstein. Hymie is a gangster villain, but Burke goes
out of his way to point out that he is not being anti-Jewish (Burke, p.
158-159). Louey is a successful
“Polynesian” bar owner on Norfolk Island (Burke, p. 121). In The Goodbye Wave, though, the head
of Fiji is referred to as a “baboon” (Burke, p. 129). This is a rather racist description, even for
humorous purposes. Overall this is a
very multicultural book, with Chinese, Japanese, Philipino, Hong Kong, Russian,
Balkan and Greeks mentioned with stories being set in many different countries. We get a true sense of the world, rather than
a monosyllabic, white Anglo-Saxon perspective.

The aged feature
in a very minor way in these tales.
There is one uncomplimentary portrayal (Burke, p. 176) and one positive
description of an older (though not necessarily aged) woman (Burke, p.
195). Burke could lift his game a little
here, as the world is not full of only those under 55 years, even though some
agencies such as advertising would have us believe this.

From the
Capitalism verses Socialism perspective wealth in these stories is certainly
suspect. These tales show only a very
slim difference between corrupt businessmen and rich gangsters. Politicians and even judges don’t exactly
receive compliments. The lower classes
are not lauded, but they are not seriously criticized. The Little people’
more often than not help Paddy. The
middle class is to a degree absent, but this is not so surprising as they are
not likely to have the funds to hire a Private Investigator and are too ‘clean’
to have information on gangsters.

From the broader
outlook of society in general, the Catholic Church is foot-noted as being
anti-gay (Burke, p. 82 & 154) and rather a kill-joy for the more spirited
members of the world (Burke, 149). The
Police are depicted as being often incompetent and corrupt. These two institutions of society, perhaps in
tune with Socialism, could be improved.

Before departing
from these various social issues it should be stressed that these stories rely
very much on outrageous statements and circumstances for humor. The book is full of politically incorrect text,
but we are meant to take everything tongue in cheek. If we read these tales too critically we will
be deeply offended, but Burke wants us, on the one hand to ‘lighten up’, and on
the other hand to look a bit deeper. If
this is kept in mind the book can very much be enjoyed.

From a Postmodern
perspective it can be noted that there are no hard edge binary oppositions in Pest On The Run. There are definite ‘bad’ guys, but good and
bad blur. As has been noted, Paddy
himself is shady. We like him precisely
because he is a ‘wag’. In Murder
Before Lunch Pest even works for a crime boss. This blurring of categories makes for a more
realistic and interesting read. It adds
‘spice’ and avoids boring oversimplification.

Many stories have
a mythological quality, and indeed these elements can be what attract us most
to an author’s work. For Paddy Pest we
need only to turn to the Joker Card in the modern playing card
pack. As court jester, the Joker
is dressed in a funny costume, and Pest similarly assumes dubious
disguises. The Joker’s cap has
pretentious baubles and he holds a wand topped with a manikin of himself. Pest is none to retiring in describing his
own talents as a spy and lover. Yet the
Joker possesses almost magical powers that no other card has, and in its
presence many a losing hand can be transformed into a winning hand. Pest does solve the case, even if by sheer
luck. Of course, most of all, the Joker
tells silly stories and jokes, and that is the overwhelming ethos of Burke’s
book.

Gerry Burke has written
a very entertaining book for the not so serious at heart. He manages to take a look at a wide variety
of social issues, such as Feminism, while at the same time making us
laugh. The dark world of crime is
depicted, occasionally with the brutality described, but good always wins out
and we are mostly entertained by a light hand.
Most stories are around 20 pages long, and are ideal reading if you are
short of time. Pest On The Run was a pleasure to read and I am happy to rate it as
4.5 out of 5 stars.

Currency Converter

Follow by Email

Subscribe To

My Google+

Raymond Mathiesen In Brief

Qualifications

I have a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in literature (James Cook University of North Queensland). In that degree I obtained minors in psychology, modern history and economics.I also have a Graduate Diploma of Library Science in which my studies included management and communications (Queensland University of Queensland).

IdeologyOf course I should give some idea of my predispositions and agendas.

I was brought up in a strong Evangelic Christian tradition, but as an older adult have certainly left that ideology. I have some interest in Eastern religion, but more properly could be discribed as spiritual rather than religious. I am interested in questions of ethics, meaning and being, and the highest aspects and achievements of humanity.

Susan McMichael In Brief

Qualifications

I received my B.A. (Hons) from the University of New England, Armidale, in 1992, majoring in English. I focused on Victorian and American literature. I have also studied Psychology and French.

I have been reading Sylvia Plath since 1983, and studied both Plath and Ted Hughes,at UNE.

Ideology

The Left and the Right are apparently no longer in fashion. We expanded the text and now it has flowed everywhere.

At this rate, Leavis will soon be popular again. Ideology often feels like shifting sands, or a map whose directions I don't really want to follow. Suffice to say, that I don't like Critical Theory, but have read it; feminism is a changing ideology with equality at its core and thank goodness for post modernism, (which has been around for a while).